| Reference number | EC/1962/04 |
| Previous numbers | Cert XVII, 33 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Cochran, William: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Description | Certificate of Election |
| Citation | Cochran has solved several interesting crystal structures of organic compounds. His most important and early contributions, however, have been concerned with the improvement of crystallographic methods. He introduced a Fourier synthesis with the differences between calculated and observed structure factors as coefficients of the terms, and used it to determine the positions of the hydrogen atoms and the exact distribution of electron density in chemical bonds. He discovered general relations between the phases of structure factors, calculated the probability of such relations holding true and developed high speed computer methods for their practical application. He also developed a theory of diffraction from helical chain molecules which has proved most fruitful. Recently he has written several mathematical papers on lattice dynamics, in which he makes important advances by considering the degrees of freedom corresponding to the electrons as well as the lattice vibrations. Applications of this work are made to the theory of neutron diffraction and to ferroelectricity. |
| Proposers | Proposer - M F Perutz; Seconder - N F Mott; Alex R Todd; W L Bragg; Kathleen Lonsdale; J D Bernal; Dorothy Hodgkin; H M Powell; H Lipson; J C Kendrew; Francis Crick |
| Access status | Open |
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Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | Name | Dates |
| NA3974 | Cochran; William (1922 - 2003) | 1922 - 2003 |